


We Saved Each Other

by Mourshkin



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Chirrut likes telling stories, Everyone lives, F/F, First Kiss, First Meeting, Force Sensitive Chirrut, Genderswap, How they saved each other, Lesbian, because more ladies please
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 08:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11009790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mourshkin/pseuds/Mourshkin
Summary: "You saved me.""The force saved you, it acted through me."How Chirrut and Baze first met, saved each other and fell in love!





	We Saved Each Other

**Author's Note:**

> It a wee bit slow to start but it gets there I promise!
> 
>  
> 
> There is a description of near drowning so please give this a miss if that is upsetting for you!

"So how did you two meet?"

Cassian is sprawled on her medbay bunk, looking exhausted but more relaxed than the rest of rouge one had ever seen her.

"I sav-" Baze began but she was cut off by Chirrut's flamboyant declaration.

"We saved each other from certain death!"

Cassian's eyebrows reached her hairline and she slid Baze a questioning glance. Baze closed her eyes in grim acceptance but a smile tugged at her cheek.

"Yes something like that..."

\-------

Baze pitied Chirrut when she first saw the new initiate. Not for her clouded eyes, but because she was too old. She towered over the other children who had been selected for their force sensitivity. They had found is girl too late, in some back water South Jedhan town. Now she would never be a jedi.

Chirrut loved Baze the first time she heard her. The apprentice Guardian's soft, low voice drifted from the Temple gardens, singing a Southern lullaby that was achingly familiar. She soon recognised that voice and heard it sweet and serious but never met the singer.

Their lives were separate. Baze a young Guardian, initiated when her mothers could no longer afford to feed her. A tough child from a mining town who had now lived most of her life in the Temple grounds. Her days involved practical maintenance work and guiding pilgrims, her martial training would not begin until next year when she came of age.

Chirrut spent her days in meditation and training classes with other children who could sense the force. Year after year she was passed over by visiting jedis seeking a padawan. Her gift had been recognised too late. But all was as the force willed it and she grew to love caring for the younglings as they took the first steps into the force. Most of all she loved when they first touched kyber and made it sing. Chirrut was sure that when the kyber crystals sang in her hand, she could see their colours.

Baze Malbus worked dilligently, trusted in the force but could not feel it. Chirrut Imwe heard the force clearly. Tonight is said, "Do it, and the force will protect you."

She slipped from her dorm and crept bare foot to the courtyard. Disciple Lu had said it was the night of the new moon, dark as pitch. Perfect for Chirrut's plan. She was halfway across the courtyard when she heard a soft lullaby suddenly cut short. She stopped, surely no one could see her if it was as dark as Lu had said?

Baze leant out of the dorm window, a lantern perched next to the book of teachings she was ostensibly reading. She had drifted into waking dreams of home when a movement in the dark brought her back. The blind initiate. Even cloaked in shadow, Baze was sure. What was she up to? She watched as the young woman moved on in the dark, reached forward and began to unlatch...the door to the kyber mines?

Baze stood suddenly and grabbed the lantern, pausing only to carefully close the book. What was the fool doing? Entering the mines was highly dangerous, and also forbidden to any but upper disciples and mining trained guardians.

Chirrut stepped cautiously, she had not brought her staff as any tapping could have given her away. She relied on her echobox to guide her down the rough and twisting stairs, her bare toes gripping the cold stone. There seemed to be multiple paths and passages but the force guided her and soon she felt herself enter an echoing cavern, as high as the grand temple and stretching every direction.

Baze's jaw dropped. She had just watched as this girl had navigated effortlessly through the winding uneven maze of the mines. And now she was walking directly toward the nearest crystal cluster as confidently as if she could see it. The girl reach a trembling hand and gasped as she touched the towering gems. The gasp echoed and bounced and seemed to break the spell of stillness.

Chirrut laughed and whooped and danced from crystal to towering shard. The force guided her in a dance and with each touch the colours sang louder in her ears. This was life, this was what the force willed, this-

Baze's chest seized as she watched the foolish girl slip. It seemed slower than a feather falling and faster than falling asleep. Then she was gone and the black water of the lagoon boiled like a cauldron.

Chirrut's feet kicked against nothing, her lungs gasped in nothing, there was no up and no down, the force was gone. Her hands flailed into cold nothingness. And found warmth. She was dragged from nothing into the bone chilling air and scraped onto the hard rock.

Baze wrestled with the writhing, wet mass she had pulled from the lagoon. Her foot hit the lantern, a dull splash and there was utter darkness. But she did not stop her shaking hands, pulling the half drowned wretch from the water.

"You need to take these wet things off or you'll catch your death."

The voice vaguely echoed in Chirrut's ear but she couldn't process. Her body convulsed as water was forced from her lungs and stomach. She felt a broad hand on her back and registered the chill as cold air touched her naked skin.

Baze worked as if possessed, guided by an unseen hand. Guided by the force. She unwrapped the sash at her waist, rubbing roughly at Chirrut's limbs to dry and warm them. She wrapped it around the young woman's dripping hair. Then pulled of her own robes as if they were aflame and folded the initiate into them, rubbing her hands until she spoke.

"You saved me."

"The force saved you, it acted through me." Baze's own voice shook, she felt the force leaving her and now she felt very lost in the pitch dark of the cavern. "We need to get back."

"M-my echo box. It'll have been ruined by the water. C-can you guide me?"

Baze shook her head with a sinking heart and then realised the action was useless.

"I can't, I lost my light. I can't see any more than you."

Chirrut let out a sharp breath. And grinned.

"Then I will save you!"

"What?"

"As you said, you can't see at all. But I can feel the kyber. The force will guide us through the kyber."

Baze sat in stunned silence. This crazy girl actually thought she could feel the crystals? But Chirrut was already getting to her feet.

"Come on, up up! There, put your hand on my shoulder and walk just behind me. I've got plenty experience of this, although I'll admit its usually the other way around!"

Chirrut's easy laughing voice seemed both impossible and miraculous to Baze. They were lost deep underground in a cavern so vast and dangerous that they could easily die here and not be found for months. But a warm, shaking hand found hers, placed it on a robed shoulder and didn't let go. The cheery voice guided her around stones and up steps until against all the odds they stepped into the fresh air.

Chirrut whooped and threw her hands in the air. The soft breeze! Dirt beneath her feet! Of course the force had saved them! Withhout thinking she turned, grasped Baze's face in her hands and kissed her roughly.

Baze blinked in the grey light of a handful of stars. More stars danced as the wild girls lips met her's. She tried to lean into the kiss with a relieved smile. But her teeth began to chatter mercilessly.

Chirrut pulled back and gasped.

"Are you wearing anything at all?!"

A hand reached down and found only a short, thin shift.

"Oh you're crazy! How could you let me take all your clothes, here you're the one thats going to catch your death!"

Baze tried to protest but was dragged into the open folds of Chirrut's robe. The warmth was over whelming and she leaned in gratefully.

\-------

 

"And then Baze proposed to me, right there in the middle of the courtyard!"

Baze chuckled at the shocked expressions of the rogue one crew. They should know better than to believe Chirrut's stories.

"Or, then she insisted I sleep in her bed to prevent hypothermia. And proposed to me three weeks letter in the form of a note pinned to the Temple noticeboard!"

Jyn's face split into a smile.

"Chirrut did you really?"

Chirrut smiled, leaned over and kissed Baze on the temple.

"Well maybe that was the first time, I had to ask a fair few more times until this old fool actually believed me enough to say yes."

Baze closed her tired eyes and leaned into Chirrut, just like on that first night.

"And I'm so glad my stubborn wife convinced me."


End file.
